


methodically knocking my husband's hat off

by strikethesun



Category: Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Genre: M/M, Short, indirect discussion of mental illness, look i know these tags aren't making it seem this way but it's supposed to be a little funny, probably dead narrator, soft sad husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikethesun/pseuds/strikethesun
Summary: secret santa gift for yellowcrayon with the prompt "Ishmael pranking someone on the ship (who probably deserves it) or Ishmael instinctually knocking the hat off of someone on the ship." you probably weren't asking for something this angsty, but my hand slipped!!
Relationships: Ishmael/Queequeg (Moby Dick)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	methodically knocking my husband's hat off

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YellowCrayon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowCrayon/gifts).



back when the Pequod was just barely underway, he found it hard to let his old habits die peacefully. he told me once, in a quiet early morning moment in the rigging, that i had saved his life. i wasn’t sure what he meant at the time, as our journey hadn’t yet gotten dangerous, but it didn’t take too much longer for me to pick up on his more self-destructive tendencies, and watched him carefully retreat into some awful part of his mind whenever he wasn’t being actively engaged in the maintaining of the ship.

the worst of it, of course, was the silent sobbing late at night, as he’d tremble in my arms, and give me a glassy look indicative of demons i’d never truly get to confront; we ran out of time.

but i want my tale, or at least this part of it, to be a happy one, so i’ll focus on the more lighthearted aspects of my dear Ishmael’s unfortunate state of mind:  
it must have been around midnight. i should have been asleep, but my muscles ached for brisk wind and for a couple puffs from my pipe, so i quietly put on my coat and hat before creeping out onto to deck. 

truly alone for the first time in several weeks, i found my thoughts couldn’t help but wander back to Ishmael— was the hurt inside him reparable? who had inflicted it? or was it bestowed on him by the heavens instead, those heavens that he and most of the rest of the crew seemed to fear so intensely? why would any loving god treat their children so— 

at that moment, as if it were a punishment for my intended blasphemy, i felt my hat get knocked clean off of my head. it tumbled for a moment in the wintry wind, and if it weren’t for quick reflexes developed in a far off childhood, the hat surely would have fallen into the sea. i had no intention of getting into a quarrel on this voyage, but i still turned around with a sort of instinctual fury and heat.

however, it fizzled away as soon as i saw my Ishmael, clearly not fully awake, dressed only in his shirt, unsteady on his feet. i grabbed him as gently as i could and, in the same motion, put my hat over his mess of light hair— he woke up immediately, and looked from me to his still-outstretched arm and back to me, now laughing heartily, and i saw his face brighten.

“bad dreams, Ish?”

“yeah,” he huffed. “i knocked your hat off, didn’t i?”

“sure did.”

“it’s an old habit.” his smile turned a little sad. “and a long story.”

“you don’t have to tell it now.” i noticed only now that he had returned my squeeze of the hand, his soft fingers curling around my rougher ones. 

“i know, queequeg. we have time, right?”

i nodded, for i couldn’t tell the future, but even if i had been able to, i think i would have lied directly to his face if it meant seeing him beam at me, close his eyes, and embrace me in his most loving way.


End file.
